Picoides scalaris
- Photo: Bill Kaufman
A woodpecker’s head endures deceleration at 1,000 times the force of gravity with each strike and can drum 8 – 12,000 times a day.
Sabino Canyon’s smallest woodpecker is the Ladder-backed. They are fairly common year round and easily distinguishable from the other more familiar local woodpecker, the brash Gila, even though both species have a black and white barred back.
The Ladder-backed head has black and white stripes and the males have a red head top while the Gila has an all-tan head (red dot on top on males). A Ladder-backed is about 7.25 inches long, a Gila 25 percent larger. Like all woodpeckers, Ladder-backed are specially equipped to cling to and hammer a vertical surface with their heads. The entire body of the woodpecker powers the battering of its chisel-like beak. Stiff tail feathers supported by powerful muscles brace them while zygodactyl feet (two toes facing forward and two backward) grip solidly.
Researchers calculated a woodpecker’s head endures deceleration at 1,000 times the force of gravity with each strike and can drum 8 – 12,000 times a day.
Sound like a pounding headache? Helmet designers study woodpecker skull shock absorption to learn how to prevent human brain concussions. Features contributing to brain protection include a skull that is reinforced in some places and spongy in others, and a bill in which the upper and lower halves are of unequal length.
Ladder-backed are territorial, monogamous and forage as pairs through mesquites, brush and yuccas calling back and forth with a sharp “pweek!” They excavate insects or just snatch them up with a long, barbed, sticky tongue.
Nesting in larger trees, in this case a velvet ash, Ladder-backed woodpeckers chisel out a cavity with an entry barely wide enough for an adult so that no larger uninvited guests can slip in. Ladder-backed males have a larger beak and do most of the nest excavation. The female lays 3-4 eggs, which both sexes take turns incubating. In 13 days naked, blind chicks hatch and both father and mother feed them.
This Photograph was taken in April 2012 in Sabino Canyon.
Gila Woodpecker